Recycled Art

Piwakawaka has been creating artworks from junk, nothing could be bought. It took us a long time to complete our creations and a few groups were challenged with construction. After we had finished we held an art exhibition for our friends and family. This is the slide show we presented at assembly.

Paper Storage

We have had a new paper storage unit made for the class. We needed it to store the art paper tidily. Jack S painted it for us. We chose the colours because they were already in our room and they looked really good together. Jack taped the areas that needed to painted different colours. He did an amazing job using a roller.

Recycled Art Exhibition

Piwakawaka are holding their first art exhibition next week. There has been a lot of planning and creating going into our work and we would love to share the results with you. Check out the details. Thank you for the cool poster Seth.

Summer Reading Challenge

Krystal, from Westland District Library, visited our school to talk about the Summer reading Challenge, a competition the library runs over the summer holiday. We can win  books and there is also a camera up for grabs. You can visit the library or download the entry form from the library website.

Recycled Art

We have been exploring different ways to use waste products in artworks. The class has been very excited planning, documenting, and creating their art. Some have already finished and there are lots of works close to completion.

This is one of our finished works. These boys are very proud.

LEARNZ Virtual Field Trip

This week we have participated in a virtual field trip to the Kate Valley Landfill. We have a joined in Webinairs, watched videos and read diary entries. We have learnt so much from this. We have learn t about the gases in the landfill, compacted rubbish is easier to transport, we are more aware of the rubbish we produce. We have really enjoyed the experience.

Life Education

We had Monz and Harold visit Kaniere School in the first week of this term. We learned about what it means to be a digital citizen.  We focus on the behaviours that we should be practicing when we are online and what we can and can't share. Harold also reminded us that whatever we post stays there forever, and if we are ever concerned about what we see we can talk to our parents, or teacher. It is the same messages we get through our Cybersmart programme.

Calendar Art

We have been busy working on completing our calendar art. We took inspiration from Folk Art. The bright colours and patterning appealed and we thought that this would look good printed on a calendar. The calendar art is a fundraiser for our Home and School committee. Not only is our art work available as a calendar it can also be printed on mouse pads, note books, and blank cards.
Follow the link here to see our work: Calendar Art

Happy Holiday

I hope you are all enjoying your break from school. Remember the things we can do to continue our learning. Blogging is a great way of keeping up your reading and writing. So we agreed blogging three posts and three comments a week would be helpful. I can see some of you are doing this already. If you want to practise your maths go to the learning site and explain to your family how you solved our problems this term.

Remember to collect your items to use for our recycled art creations in Term 4 and coloured bottle tops for our Learn, Create, Share signs. I have sanded them all ready to start as soon as we get back.

Conservation Week Activity

To celebrate Conservation Week Piwakawaka took part in the NZ Nature competition run by the Department of Conservation. We could choose to write about an experience we had in NZ nature, or create an artwork. Several of our class went to the prize giving ceremony in Greymouth, some won  prizes. One even got runner up in his age group. Here is our class display of our work.
 

Visit From Our Olympian Ambassador

We were lucky enough to have Alexis Pritchard visit us here at Kaniere. Alexis represented New Zealand at the Olympic and Commonwealth Games. She competed as a boxer. Alexis shared her ideas on what it takes to be successful in attaining your goals. She spoke of need to try things that are new or hard, and to keep going through the tough times. Alexis also spoke of the need to have fun.

Alexis has retired from boxing now, but can reflect on her successful sixteen year career.  The highlight being the bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games in 2018.

Alexis with some of our senior students at Kaniere

Junk2Funk

Some of our brave students took part in a local community event, Junk2Funk. Three groups of three students made an ensemble from recycled items. The theme was One World. The first group entitled their work 'Flower Garden', another was 'Habitats' and our last group made a timeline of Earth. Can you guess which is which?

They had an amazing day meeting the judges and parading their outfits on the catwalk.

Matific Competition and Screencastify

The whole class was engaged as we recorded our Matific activities on Screencastify, then added to our blogs. Our school is competing with schools from New Zealand and Australia to become Matific champions.

Lunar Lander

We have been following up on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Apollo is a name from greek mythology. On the 21st of July 1969 Neil Armstrong was the first human to set foot on the moon. Our challenge was to build a lunar lander from the materials provided, and land it up the right way with our two astronauts  still inside. We broke into teams of four and had to design and build our lander. We simulated our lunar landing  by dropping our spacecraft from the ladder.  

Term 3 Begins

Welcome back for Term 3, 2019. And just as the school holidays end the sun returns. It has been a busy week preparing for Student Led Conferences and learning new routines.

We have been working on our SMART goals. These goals are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound. By making smart goals we know we can achieve what we set out to do. We know "a goal without a plan is a wish." Check out the goals your child has set for Reading and Writing, and ask them to show their reflection on their Term 1 goals.

Piwakawaka are going to pair with Weka on a Monday morning to help them with their reading. We are learning the 5 Bits Routine used in their learning space so we can be the best buddy readers.

For our own learning we have completed the assessment on Reading Theory so we can use this programme to improve our own reading comprehension, along with "I think the means.. " during our group time.

During Maths we have been learning Talk Moves to help solve with buddies.

VERY PROUD STUDENTS

This is Seth, Paige and Jack R with the class art that they all helped to create.

Latest Ruma Piwakawaka Class Art Effort

We have been working on this piece of art for weeks and it took a lot of planning and effort.  A real class effort.  Very proud of Ruma Piwakawaka!

CPR with Cat from St Johns

Today Cat from St Johns came into Ruma Piwakawaka and taught us all about CPR.  Everyone  had lots of fun and there was a lot of learning going on.  We even got our very own first aid kit from Cat. 
SO ... we think that every school should do this ... so if you have not ... you should!

Our original images

Today in Ruma Piwakawaka we completed our original images of dragons. Take a look at our finished pictures by clicking on the links.

Creating our own images

Today Mrs Minehan talked to us about the images we use off the internet. We learnt that it is best to create our own, so she showed us how to download an image from the Explore tool onto Google Drawing and then we made it our own by using the Polyline line tool to draw over it and colour it in. It was so much fun. Have you ever made your own images like this?

TERM ONE

Ruma Piwakawaka has been very busy this term. Check out some of the fun things that we have been doing!

Working on our Self Portraits.

Welcome to our first class post for 2019. In Ruma Piwakawaka we have been busy introducing ourselves so Mrs Swinburn can get to know her new class. Please visit our blogs to check out our creations. Happy blogging...